1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid material arrangement method that uses a liquid droplet discharge method, and to a method for manufacturing a color filter and a method for manufacturing an organic EL display device that use the liquid material arrangement method.
2. Related Art
Coating techniques that use a droplet discharge method have recently received attention. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2003-159787 discloses a method for manufacturing a color filter for a liquid crystal display device using a droplet discharge method. In this manufacturing method, a liquid material (droplets) that includes a color material is discharged from micro nozzles in a droplet discharge head (hereinafter referred to as a head) that scans in relation to a substrate, the liquid material is arranged (drawn) in partitioned regions on the substrate and then cured by drying the arranged liquid material, and a color film that corresponds to a pixel is formed.
The pattern in which the droplets are arranged on the substrate can be expressed as a so-called dot pattern (dot matrix pattern), and the dot pattern is converted to ON/OFF data (discharge data) for discharge that correspond to the relative positions (hereinafter referred to as scanning positions) of each nozzle with respect to the substrate, and discharge is controlled. Such a dot pattern is generated in advance according to a liquid material pattern to be formed on the substrate (in accordance with a corresponding pixel structure in the case of color filter manufacturing), or a nozzle (head) alignment configuration or other hardware conditions.
However, the nozzle (head) characteristics can vary from unit to unit, and the characteristics sometimes vary due to late-occurring factors and other causes, and the hardware conditions sometimes do not necessarily match the ideal model. A dot pattern must be newly generated in accordance with various hardware conditions in order to arrange the liquid material with high precision. For example, when a severe error occurs in the amount of discharge from a certain nozzle, a dot pattern may be generated that does not use the affected nozzle, or a dot pattern may be generated in which the landing positions are corrected according to the landing alignment of the droplets.
However, it is extremely inefficient to generate a new dot pattern for each case such as the various cases described above. The reason for this is that an appropriate dot arrangement must be created for each condition while taking into account the number of dots to be arranged in the partitioned region, the scanning position of each nozzle for each scan, the frequency with which each nozzle is used, and other factors.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for an improved liquid material arrangement method. This invention addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.